zhyyhola

Research

My research focuses on modality and degree semantics in natural language. Below are some highlights from my academic work and conference presentations:

Selected Presentations

• 2025: How can zenme(yang) be so?, LSA 99th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, US.
• 2023: Language Attitudes Towards the Lianyungang Dialect, The 8th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation (ICLDC 8), Hawaii, US.
• 2023: Acoustic correlates of Mongolian Stress are better explained by default-to-same than default-to-opposite: a preliminary investigation, LSA 97th Annual Meeting, Denver, US.
  (Co-authored with Ryan Chon, Yin Wang, Joe Garcia, and Kate L. Lindsey)
• 2019: The Study on Modal Dei in Lianyungang Dialect, The 27th Annual Conference of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL-27), Kobe, Japan.
• 2018: The Preverbal and Post-verbal Modal Constructions: A Case in Lianyungang Dialect, The 8th International Conference on Formal Linguistics (ICFL-8), Hangzhou, China.

Research Interests

• Modality:
  Investigating how different types of modality (e.g., deontic, epistemic, dynamic) are expressed across dialects, particularly in Central Plains Mandarin and Lianyungang Dialect.
• Degree Semantics:
  Studying degree expressions in Mandarin Chinese, such as adjectives and degree adverbs, and their syntactic and semantic properties.
• Language Documentation:
  Exploring the linguistic attitudes and structures of underrepresented languages, such as Mongolian and regional Chinese dialects.

Thank you for your interest in my research! If you’d like to learn more, feel free to contact me or explore other sections of my website.